the_mysterious_mr_enterfandomcom-20200214-history
I want to tell you a story...
About an attempt by Google to compete with a social sharing website. With it, users could share videos, status messages, conversations, etc. It was called "Google Buzz" It was launched February 9th and discontinued December 15th, 2011. Less than two years later and almost no one knows that it ever existed. If they did they'd probably me even more pissed about this Google+ shit than they are already. It's biggest criticism was it's lack of consideration for user privacy, and that's pretty odd because Google Buzz didn't ask users for their real name to completely attempt to destroy anonymity. Google Buzz publicly disclosed a list of names of contacts that the user had most frequently emailed or chatted with. It obviously resulted in a wave of negative publicity. How does Google decide to fix this problem? "Let's not fix the privacy concerns. Let's just force our users into this." A lot of people tend to be defending Google+. As far as I know, none of them are content creators. Maybe I can delve deeper into why this is such an abject failure of a product. YouTube thrives on anonymity, which is the exact opposite purposes of websites like Facebook (which G+ is trying to compete with). Without anonymity I probably never would have started up this review series. I'm a shy, introverted, soft-spoken person in real life. A barrier of anonymity is the only thing that allowed me to express myself. Their purposes are diametrically opposed. I don't care if it's a better Facebook than Facebook. I want it to be the best YouTube that it can be. Unfortunately, even if it is a better Facebook than Facebook it's going to fail eventually. Social media isn't about how many bells, whistles, buzzers, tweeters, facets, or shinies you can put on your product. It's about the social aspect. People aren't going to migrate en masse from Facebook to Google+ for the same reasons that people aren't going to migrate en masse from YouTube to Dailymotion, etc no matter how fall YouTube falters. Facebook is where all the people are. Facebook is where people have set up their social lives, and they're not just going to pack up their things and leave. Especially because Facebook has a few extra perks like Farmville or Mafia Wars. Great. So why should I care if Google+ is destined to fail? One particular reason. My YouTube inbox has this message "Most comment notifications will now be delivered by Google+ and not to your inbox." Okay Google+ thank you for the kind warning. Now can you please tell me where I can find Google+'s easy to navigate and ordered inbox? No, it doesn't exist? Huh, that's odd. Why would you remove a semi-functional capability and replace it with something that's pretty much nonexistent? Google+ tells me whenever I get a comment with that bell icon. I click it. I read the comment, and then it pretty much disappears from my notice forever. Reading comments through Gmail is already clunky enough as it. My biggest problem is that this was forced. Any PR representative should know that it's a bad idea to force anything on people. People, by nature, are hesitant to change. When something is forced on them (even if it's beneficial google+*cough), they are going to resist and they may even panic. YouTube's video "Meet the New YouTube comments" has been bombarded, as it should have been. If you are going to force something on people, make sure it damn well works. Random (yes, I do mean completely random) comments have been marked as spam. I wanted to run through all my old videos and save those comments, but I can't do it to any comments before the Google+ update because it is broken. Google thinks that the detractors are just a vocal minority of trolls. They're truly diluted in that they think this is going to work. Alright Vic Gundotra, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I should enlighten you to some people whose opinions have more validity than my own. Here's a quote from Jawed Karim, one of the co-founders of YouTube: "why the fuck do i need a google+ account to comment on a video?" How about this essay from one of your former employees who left your company over google plus? blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/ar… So what are the benefits of Google+ comments? A lot less of them because there are people who would rather keep their information private rather than comment. But seriously, what are the benefits? Oh we can link comments now. Thanks for the shock sites, the screamers, and the viruses. And don't say I'm lying about this because I've already run across a few of them in my own comments (which I have promptly deleted. By the way, linking to any such sites will result in a block from my channel). Okay we can have longer comments now. Awesome. I really love the ASCII art of phalluses and other weird shit. Oh, and I also wanted to read the entirety of "War and Peace" on the music video of "Fireflies" by Owl City. Oh, and I love it how all of my subscriptions are focused more on complaining about Google+ than making more entertaining videos (cough*hypocrisy*cough) But do you know what my biggest problem with Google+ is? It is definitive proof that they no longer care about the consumer. Who was asking for Google+? Even if you were, I doubt that you were asking for it be forced on every YouTube user. It was forced on every YouTube user in a buggy state that I doubt even went through beta testing it has so many problems. Google knows about all of the criticism of Google+, and instead of fixing it they're more intend on changing the Likes bar blue. (My guess is that they're trying to see if people will complain about a pointless change so they can disregard complaints over every single change). This is proof that Google only cares about numbers, rather than the quality of their product. If you like Google+, like Google+ I don't care, but for the love of God do not add me to your "circle" or whatever the hell Google+ calls it. It makes me die a little bit inside. And don't you dare say that I'm overreacting when I believe that this is the worst change yet to happen to YouTube and I think that it's going down the shitter. Google+ is a worse product than Google Buzz, and instead of making it a better one they're more intend on forcing it on their users. Okay, Google if you want to keep Google+ around, then here's a bit of advice. Start rehearsing "Viva La Vida." Category:Miscellaneous